Acting Out (2 page)

“It's just that this bus ride is pretty boring, don't you think?” I asked Natasha, acting like I was used to being the life of the party. “I mean, look at everyone. They're all half-asleep. We should liven this place up. I know! Let's sing ‘A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall'! Everyone loves that song!” Maybe the more I acted this way, the faster I'd get used to my new self.

“No, they don't,” said the ponytail girl in the seat in front of us. “Why don't you do us all a favor and shut up?” she added over the back of her seat. The friend she'd saved a seat for turned around and gave me a dirty look too.

I had no idea what to say to that. For one thing, nobody would ever tell Chloe Carlson to shut up while she was being funny. And if anyone ever said anything slightly sarcastic to her, she always had a quick comeback. Always. I tried to think of something, but my brain was frozen.

The ponytail girl had turned back around. She figured she'd shut me up for good. I did feel pretty silly. I wasn't very good at acting this way. I felt like covering my face with my hands, so I did, but then I got inspired.

I sat there with my face covered up and pretended to cry. I let out these loud
boo-hoo
sounds. “I don't have any friends!” I sobbed, loud enough for everyone around me to hear. Then I looked up at Natasha. “Will you be my friend if I pay you a buck?”

That's when the girls behind me started to laugh. “I'll be your friend for five bucks!” somebody yelled.

“Twenty for me!”

Natasha shook her head and grinned. “I had no idea I was inviting a crazy person to sit beside me. JD, of course I'll be your friend, and you don't need to pay me a dollar.” She looked over the back of the seat. “I'll do it for free!” she said.

“My first friend!” I yelled. “I actually have a friend now!” The two girls in front of us had put their pillows over the tops of their heads to cover up their ears. “And I've got some enemies, too!” I shouted.

Natasha cracked up laughing. I could only imagine what my friends back home would've said.
Judith, what's wrong with you? You never act like this.

Maybe Judith didn't. But JD did.

“We're finally here!” said Natasha when we turned onto a gravel road and passed a sign that said
CAMP PINE HAVEN FOR GIRLS.
She jiggled her knee up and down as she looked out the window. We passed a lake and some tennis courts. There were tons of people all around and a lot of cars lined up along the road.

When we got off the bus, a bunch of counselors were waiting for us and yelling directions. They all had on matching green shirts, so they were easy to spot. They broke us up into age groups, and Natasha and I found out we were both in the group called Middlers—ages ten to twelve. That made us the oldest in the group.

Then a lady with a clipboard asked us our names. When it was my turn, I said, “JD Duckworth,” like I'd always been called that. She looked at her list and didn't seem at all confused. “Okay, JD. You're in Middler Cabin Two A.”

Then Natasha said, “Natasha Cox.”

“Hi, Natasha. You're in Middler Cabin Three B.”

Natasha and I looked at each other. “Can't we switch? We're best friends. We really need to be together,” I said.

The lady shook her head. “Sorry, cabin assignments have already been made. But you'll still see a lot of each other.” She smiled and moved on to the next girl.

Natasha and I walked over to where all the luggage from the bus was piled up. “I can't believe it. We just get to know each other and we're already split up,” I said.

Natasha pushed her glasses up her nose. Now that I was standing next to her, I saw that she only came up to my shoulder. “I know, but like she said, we'll still see each other a lot.”

Some guys wearing red T-shirts that said “Camp Crockett” helped us carry our trunks to the cabins. It was weird that the camp made everyone bring trunks to keep all their stuff in, but that's what the letter had said to do. Plus they gave us a list of what to bring and told us to put name tags in all our clothes. When my mom was getting my things ready, I felt like I'd joined the army.

We had to climb up a big hill to get to where the cabins were. I was glad I only had to carry my tennis racket and backpack.

“It sure is pretty here, isn't it?” asked Natasha. It was a sunny day, and everything was so green. There were trees everywhere, big rock formations, lots of hills, and off in the distance, bluish-colored mountains. All the buildings were wooden, and the whole camp looked like it should be on a postcard or something.

At the top of the hill we came to a long row of cabins. “Well, I guess this is good-bye—for now,” said Natasha when we got to the door of Cabin 2. She looked scared.

“Okay. I'll see you later.” It was too bad we couldn't stay together.

The guys carried my trunk in and left it inside. When I walked in, a counselor with curly blond hair said, “Hey! Are you my camper? I'm Michelle!”

She was obviously a counselor because she looked older, and she was wearing one of those green shirts, but I was about three inches taller than she was. I'm five foot six, and my doctor says I'm still growing. If I keep growing till I'm eighteen, I figure I'll be six-nine eventually.

“I'm JD. JD Duckworth.”

She frowned a little like she'd never heard of me, but then she said, “Oh, okay. Nice to meet you, JD!” She had a great grin that made her eyes crinkle up.

The cabin was awesome. It had screens all around it, so it felt really open and breezy. And there were bunk beds. I've always wanted bunk beds. Justin and Adam had them a long time ago, but they each have their own room now.

“This is cool,” I said, looking around at everything. The walls and floors were wooden, and girls had written their names all over the place.

“Wow! 1981!” I yelled. I pointed to a spot on the wall that said
JENNIFER H
. 1981. “That is so amazing! These cabins are that old?”

Michelle laughed. “Yeah. And guess what? My mom went here when she was a kid. And some people have grandmothers who went here. Can you believe it?” Her eyes crinkled again. “I'll send my daughter here too—if I have one.”

Two other girls were already in the cabin, and while we were all trying to get everyone's names straight, another girl came in.

“Here. These will help us get to know each other faster,” said Michelle. She handed out name tags. They were made out of little round slices of wood with a plastic string, but when I saw mine, I almost had a heart attack. It had
JUDITH
written on it. So much for keeping my old name a secret.

I held it against my stomach. “I need a new one. One that says ‘JD.' ”

“No problem! I'll just change the old one.” Michelle took a marker from a shelf beside her bed and wrote “JD” in big red letters on the back of the piece of wood. Then she hung the string around my neck with the “JD” side showing. “How's that?”

“Good. But can I see the marker for a second?” I asked. I took off my name tag, scribbled over
JUDITH
so no one could read it, and then put it back on again.

All the other girls were watching me, but I didn't care. I was officially JD now.

“What's your real name?” asked one girl.

“Josephina Delilah,” I said, coming up with the weirdest name I could think of. “Terrible, huh? That's why I go by JD.” Michelle smiled, and I knew she wouldn't give away my secret. Having initials as a name would be fun. I needed to think up lots of crazy names to tell people when they asked me what JD stood for. It would add to the mystery if nobody ever knew for sure.

Off in the distance we heard a bell ringing, and Michelle called out, “Hey, that means it's time for lunch. Everybody follow me, and I'll show you where the dining hall is.”

A lot of parents were still wandering around, and I sort of wished my parents could've seen the camp, but I was glad I'd taken the bus. I never would've gotten rid of my mom. I kept my eye out for Natasha till I spotted her walking with a group of girls. “Hey, let's sit together at lunch!”

“JD! I was looking all over for you. How do you like your cabin?”

“I love it, and I've got a great counselor. She's really friendly.” It was so exciting to see the whole camp. I loved how woodsy and outdoorsy everything looked.

“Yeah, I like mine, too.” She leaned close to me. “I'm not as nervous now.”

I patted her back. “See, I told you this would be a fresh start.”

But when we got inside the dining hall, we found out we couldn't sit together because we had to sit with all the people from our cabin. Michelle took me and the other girls to our table and introduced us to Alex, the counselor in Cabin 2B. She had deep blue eyes and light brown hair pinned up off the back of her neck. She was really pretty, but she didn't smile at all, so I was glad I was on Michelle's side of the cabin.

“Welcome to
Pain
Haven,” said a girl with her elbows propped on the table and a sneer on her face. Her name tag said
KATHERINE.
“For all you new campers: This place bites. I've been coming here since I was seven. I should know.”

“Nice,” Alex said, frowning at her. “Maybe they'd like to decide for themselves.” She looked at the rest of us. “I've been coming here since I was eleven. It's a great camp. I'm on the swimming staff.”

“I'm canoeing, by the way,” said Michelle, waving and smiling from the end of the table. “Katherine! We're going to have a terrific summer!”

Katherine rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

Lunch was great—tacos and fruit salad. I'd always heard that camp food was lousy, but I ate three tacos, and they didn't kill me. They didn't even make me queasy.

After lunch, Michelle pointed out different things as we walked back to the cabin. She said the oldest girls were called Seniors and the youngest were Juniors. We were right in the middle. “That's the camp office, and behind it is the infirmary, where the nurse is. That's the Crafts Cabin, and the stables are down that road.”

One weird thing was the bathrooms. They weren't inside the cabins; instead there was a building called Solitary with a bunch of sinks and toilets in it, and there was another outdoor building for the showers. It had a roof and shower stalls, but it was still like you were showering almost directly outside. I felt like we were really going to be camping out for the whole summer, and that would definitely be fun.

Back in the cabin, Michelle told us to pick out which beds we wanted. The cabin had two big rooms, A and B. Four of us were on Side A, and Alex was in charge of four girls on Side B. Luckily, Katherine was on her side of the cabin.

“I'll take a top bunk if nobody else wants one,” I said. I'd been hoping for the top as soon as I saw the bunk beds.

“Then I'll take a bottom,” said Courtney. Her hair was the first thing I'd noticed about her. It was hard not to. Here was this tiny person with a head of honey-colored hair so thick and wavy it looked like a lion's mane. She unpacked some sheets and started making up the bottom bunk below me.

“I guess I'll take the other top,” said Lauren. Her blond hair was practically white, and she wore it in a short ponytail. The back of her shorts said “Dancer.”

Amber, a girl with long brown hair and a nose that looked squashed, took the other bottom bunk. “This is my third summer, so let me know if you guys have any questions.” She had a sweet smile, so I felt bad for thinking of her as the flat-nosed girl.

“Well, it's my first year, but I made one friend on the bus. She didn't want to be friends at first, till I paid her a buck. Oh, and I made several enemies, too!” I said. I realized I was talking too loud.

“How?” asked Amber, her forehead wrinkling.

“Just by being me!” I told her. I felt like I was auditioning for a play. I had to make a big impression so I'd get the part. The others looked at me like they didn't know what to think. Everyone started making up their beds. Was I ever going to pull this off? Did they think I was funny or just obnoxious?

I opened my trunk to get out my sheets, and the first thing I saw was my headgear on top, with a note from my mom.
Hi, sweetie! Remember: 14 hours a day! Love, Mom.

Groan. At least she didn't call me Judith. Most of those hours were at night, but I had to put the thing on in the evening, and then I'd take it off when I woke up. I wished I could go the whole month without wearing it, but I'd probably go home and find out my teeth were permanently crooked. My cousin had such a bad bite, she had to have her jaw broken and then wired back together again.

So then, just to be stupid, I took out my headgear and put it on, in front of everyone. I fluffed up my hair and declared, “Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!”